The US Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City has awarded a US$2.96 million grant for the construction of an advanced battery energy storage system to AMI AC Renewables, a joint venture ( JV ) between Vietnamese company AMI Renewables and AC Energy, which is part of Ayala Corporation, one of the Philippines’ biggest conglomerates.

The system will be integrated into a 50-megawatt ( MW ) solar farm owned by the partnership in Khanh Hoa province, located 400 kilometres north of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s southern economic hub.

“The project will use cutting-edge American technology and equipment to demonstrate how advanced energy storage can reduce power losses and help Vietnam integrate greater renewable energy into its power system,” according to the US Consulate. Marie Damour, chargé d’affaires for the US Mission to Vietnam, and Nguyen Nam Thang, AMI AC Renewables’ chief executive officer, signed the grant during the US-Vietnam Energy Security Dialogue on October 15.

“Energy storage is the key to unlocking the potential of renewables and is a vital component of the energy transition,” says Patrice Clausse, chief operating officer of AC Energy International and chairman of AMI AC Renewables. “We are very excited about the opportunities that lie ahead in harnessing this enabling technology, and together with AMI [Renewables], we will aim to secure Vietnam’s renewable energy sources while helping the country achieve its sustainability goals.”

The Khanh Hoa energy storage project came after a study funded by the US Trade and Development Agency to examine the feasibility of deploying advanced energy storage technologies in Vietnam.   

In addition to developing the project, AMI AC Renewables operates 80MW of solar in Khanh Hoa and Dak Lak provinces, and is constructing a 252MW wind farm in Quang Binh province on the central coast like Khanh Hoa.

Renewable ambitions

Philippine firm AC Energy has around 1GW of renewable energy projects in operation and under construction in Vietnam and is targeting to develop another 1GW to put the total at 2GW.

The firm, which has ambitions of becoming the largest listed renewables platform in Southeast Asia, has a goal of reaching 5GW of renewables capacity by 2025. It currently has about 2.6GW of attributable capacity in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Australia.

Just before being awarded the US grant, AC Energy and another of its Vietnamese partners, the Hanoi-based BIM Group, started, ahead of schedule, the commercial operations of their 88MW wind farm project built at a cost of US$155 million in Ninh Thuan province, next to Khanh Hoa.

This is the second renewable energy project completed by the partnership in Vietnam, following its 405MW solar farm completed at the same site in 2019 in Ninh Thuan, the central coastal province often selected for combinations of wind and solar farms as the semi-arid area offers non-stop winds all year round.